Days 4 and 5 -- Warwick Castle and staying close to 'home'.

Truth be told -- I blogged for two hours last week and hit save about 37 times only to have it NOT SAVE and NOT POST.  So... I'll try these again. 

Day 4 in England - Off to Warwick Castle!

 

Royce was our fearless navigator.  He drove us in Matt and Morgan's Mini Cooper the 2.5 hours to Warwick Castle.  Through every roundabout intersection, with oncoming traffic on the right.  Left handed stick-shift and all.  He was a rock star and kept us safe. 

 

Warwick Castle is HUGE.  It's so very neat to think that some of the original parts of the castle were formed in the 1000s, with some of the current structure that still stands being built in the 1400s before America was even discovered.  Several fires happened through the years and there were major renovations through the 1700 and 1800s.  None the less, the hill used as one of the first lookouts still stands and the age of all of the structures just amazes me. 

 

This is an enormous buffet built over a 10 year span by a single oak tree.  It was amazing.  I though Royce and I were pretty crafty but sheesh, this is amazing.   

 

Horse's armor...I can't even imagine them wearing this.  And a formal dining room.  Looks like the size of table I need in my house! 

 

This is an actual Queen Anne Bed.  Queen Anne was scheduled to stay at Warwick Castle so about a month ahead of her visit she had a bed sent for her stay.  She never actually ended up staying at the castle, but seriously, can you imagine sending a bed ahead of your stay?  Wow!

 

We watched a neat jousting reenactment as well.  Complete with a heckling jester!   

 

This place was so neat.  There was beautiful room, followed by beautiful room, followed by beautiful room.  And because of the age and purpose of the castle there were also hidden staircases everywhere, secret passageways for servants and for escaping, and of course dark areas for torture and for captivity.  Wild animals included!

 

We walked every stairway and looked through the guards towers.  It was just a fun, make-believe place to be, even though it was very real all the same.  There was so much to do... you could honestly spend three days here watching all of the demonstrations and seeing all of the side shows. 

 

We did go to the top of this tower shown below.  It is the same one as seen in the picture below it.  The picture on the right is a lookout tower where they had cannons and extra supplies for an attack. 

 

 

The library had original books.  There were many issues of The Times from the late 1800s.  It was so neat!  The second picture is of the library also.  They had wax figures in there to represent the clothing, age, look of those who lived and visited the castle.  Tough in pictures to tell who is real and who is wax.

 

Pictured below is the hill that was first formed in the 1000s. 

 

The last stop of the Castle was doing the Dungeon Tour.  It was SO FUN!  It was not for the weak-stomached or easily scared.  You could think of it as an entertaining haunted house.  We first visited the castle cook, who was in charge of dissecting the latest victim of the plague, as he was supposed to see if he could find out the real cause or effect of the plague by what happens to the body.  He was sickly himself, and rather enjoyed ripping into the dead body on the table.  We next moved to a torture chamber where there were still many tools any gadgets in the room and we got a demonstration on how they were used.  We then proceeded to a trial room, where I was ordered to take the stand as I was being tried for "running about the public square while naked and showing all of my wobbly bits.". Luckily I was let off by reason of insanity.  As the crowd was ordered to BOOO me I'm quite confidant Royce's Booooos were the loudest.  You never knew when someone was going to jump out in front of you, if your seat was going to be jerked in a different direction, or if you would see any remnants left in the torture chambers.  It was an entertaining end to the day.

 

We left the castle, very tired, but decided to take advantage of Stratford Upon Avon only being 15 minutes away.  This is the birthplace of Shakespeare.  It is a beautiful little town (Stratford) sitting on a river (Avon)...... thus.... Stratford Upon Avon.   

Royce drove us safely back to Bury St. Edmunds where Matt was waiting up for us with a fresh batch of homemade ice cream.  Morgan had to fly this night.  God Bless Them for their service.

 

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Day 5 -- Staying home! 

Our lovely hostest with the mostest knew that we would be exhausted at this point so Morgan scheduled a local day for us.  We walked their little downtown market, both stores and street vendors, and had a proper breakfast.  I can handle baked beans in the morning but they can keep their blood pudding.  We put a dent in our souvenir shopping and really enjoyed the day. 

 

Royce even had a drink in The Nutshell.  This pub started in 1867 and is 15' x 7' in size.  It was a fun little stop and we are glad we have been in Britain's Smallest Pub! 

 

Matt flew this night so Morgan made tacos for us at their home.  Speaking of their home....

Pictures of the front and back.  They have off-street parking.  Morgan's Ford Escape is shown and Matt is a champ and moves it every night he gets home last and parks the Mini Cooper in the closest spot before pulling the Escape back into place.  What a guy!  Not only that he does it but that it's a crazy parking maneuver! 

 

Their staircases are all stacked in one stairway except for the third to fourth floor staircase.  And they have 12' ceilings on each floor.  The crown molding is beautiful, along with everything else.  They have two rooms per floor and the fourth floor is a big studio. 

 

Our window on the second floor looked over a school playground.  We could hear the kids playing each morning.  By day five we even missed our kids a bit. 

 

While Morgan and I enjoyed a beautiful walk in countryside this evening Royce enjoyed two more pubs.  His final pub in England was called The Mason's Arm. 

 

Good-bye England -- train ride to Scotland is next!

Day 3 - London in 12 hours!

Morgan helped Royce and I book a bus trip to London so we could tour on Monday while she and Matt went to work.  Matt gave Royce a quick European driving lesson on the way to the bus stop as Royce was set to drive us the next day on our own.

 

We arrived in London at 11am and were scheduled to get back on the bus to leave at 11pm. 

12 hours!  We hit the ground running!

First stop -- Buckingham Palace.

 

Of course, the guards are WAY far away because nobody can even come close to this entrance.  There is actually a tour for Buckingham Palace but it took almost 3 hours and it was one stop we were just okay seeing from the outside and not worrying about going in. 

 

The size and scale of everything is crazy.  SO big. 

 

This was from inside the round-about outside the palace gates.   

 

We did look at a few historical buildings, walked through a beautiful park, and sited a few other minor things along our walk.  If you're like me and relate everything in London to "how have I seen this with William and Kate or Princess Diana?" then the park we walked through was the park with a long driveway through it that essentially goes from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace.  You see it in the motorcade after William and Kate's wedding along with some of the Queen's motorcade's from the Parliament to the Palace. 

 

And so, after walking through the park we end at the Parliament which is the home of Big Ben.

It was about this time in the picture below that was the first of three times Royce asked me what time it was.  "Look at the big clock!" 

 

 

Next on our list was the London Eye.  This was a stop we allowed plenty of time for because we wanted to ride the Eye. 

 

 

A few pictures from the ride! The whole ride took about 25 minutes and was so neat.  There were probably 15-20 of us in our bubble.  There were informative videos while we rode and great photo opportunities of course. 

 

The pictures above show how small the buildings were below while we were at the top of the Eye.

The one on the right is Buckingham Palace from the Eye.  The trees are the park we walked through. 

 

 

  

Our walk back across the bridge after riding the Eye was the ONLY rain we experienced in England.  It rained on us pretty good for about 15 minutes and then it was done and we enjoyed the day. 

Now, back to the other side of Big Ben to see the Parliament.
This building was unbelievable.  The detail, quantity of sculptures, windows, carvings, and arches was unreal.  We did actually want to go on a Parliament tour but they were sold out for the day.

 

 

When we realized the Parliament tours were sold out for the day I started getting nervous that Westminster Abbey's tours may have the same status.  So we kept this stop brief and headed to where we thought Westminster Abbey was located.  OUR MAP showed it a few blocks to the south.  And I know it's crazy, in the end, to not realize we were already on the back side of the Abbey, but when we were only focused what we were looking at and our map didn't lead us to believe we were close then yes, we took off walking in the wrong direction. 

 

We DID walk through a neat park along the water, and we DID end up in a very non-touristy business district, and we DID spend 30 minutes walking at least a mile in the wrong direction.  I had switched my phone off to save data and battery for the day so when I switched it back on and mapped Westminster Abbey you can imagine my disappointment when I saw it was right where we had already been and it was now 3:45pm.  We headed back to where we had come from via a more direct route and I was beyond frustrated. 

 

We made it to Westminster Abbey around 4:00pm and they informed us that while it was open until 4:30pm they stop allowing people inside at 3:30pm.  I was so upset.  I held my own pity party, grumbled around for a while, and we circled the building a time or two so I could at least see the pretty exterior.  I usually try to see the silver lining when plans don't go my way but I couldn't see any possible reason as to why we weren't meant to get to the church on time therefore missing a tour. 

 

It was now 4:10pm and we circled the building and were looking at the church sign on the sidewalk.  Then I saw our silver lining...  The Daily Evensong was at 5:00pm.  This was a service open to the public, and the golden lining was that it was free and we hadn't had to buy a tour ticket!  So no, we didn't get a full tour, but we were going to be able to step foot inside.  Royce jumped in line an I headed for the gift shop to kill a little time.  Thankfully while I was in the gift shop I overheard people talking how they start seating everyone at 4:30.  I got back just in time! 

 

I truly hadn't seen a sign on whether or not cameras were allowed so I snapped a few pocket pictures from my phone as we were being shuffled in.  Cameras were indeed not allowed so I didn't take any more.   

 

We were in the first 20 or so people in line so we got the best seating.  We sat in the actual wooden pews that face the center checkerboard-floored isle.  I was ecstatic!  There are three rows of pews on each side.  The first two rows are for the choir and we sat in the third row.  I've looked up seating charts from the Royal wedding but it's not specific as to who was in our actual seats.  But for the Daily Evensong the choir was in front of us and it was a beautiful service.  They probably allowed 200-250 additional people in folding chairs off to the sides.  Westminster is a Catholic church, but not Roman Catholic so they don't answer to the Pope.  They are Anglican and part of Church of England. 

Taa-Daa!  A much happier Megan after the service.

(Special thanks to Royce for putting up with me before the service.)

 

We got out of the service at 6:00pm and needed to be to a show at 7:30.  We were tired, hungry, and still had to walk more before we could relax about the time. 

 

We made it to our final stop -- Seeing WICKED at the Apollo Victoria Theater!

How ironic is it that we saw Wicked, a story based off of The Wizard of Oz set in Kansas, and we went to London to see it?!?  Seeing the show was actually Royce's idea, so he and I were both on Cloud 9 at the end of the day with our last two stops.  *crummy picture but we were being shuffled through the door quickly and only had one chance!*

And of course, the show was AMAZING.  Neither of us are actually Wizard of Oz fans. 

But this show is fantastic.

 

We got out of the theater a little after 10:00pm and had until 11:00pm for our bus to leave.  We were right across the street from the bus stations so we grabbed a drink, caught some WI-Fi, and just tried to soak in all we had just experienced.  It was a fantastic day!

 

I mapped our day with the Map My Walk app.  We started and stopped at the blue dot.  The 'wrong turn' we took was the sharp V on the lower right side of the red line.  We walked straight south, I had turned my phone off, then when I found we were win the wrong spot I only left it on momentarily to get us in the right direction.  The sharp diagonal up was it 'catching' up when we were back on track after the church service.  So overall it was extremely accurate in logging our approx. 10 miles for the day.  The duration is not correct as I had my phone off during tours and such. 

 

Good-bye, London!

England and Scotland - Two years in the making

August 7-16, 2015

 

In 2013 my cousin Morgan and her husband Matt announced they would be moving to England to be stationed with the USAF there for three years.  Something inside of me said that within those three years we NEEDED to go visit.  Not just a sarcastic NEED, but truly the need that I thought would actually happen.  And two years later, it did.  It took me a while to get Royce on board, but I/we knew this was an opportunity that we wouldn't get again and that we needed to take advantage of them being there.  Truly a trip we wouldn't regret. 

 

We started rough-planning at the end of 2014, marking a two-to-three month window that we thought would be best.  Not knowing if Matt or Morgan would be deployed during this time we said we'd check in again in the spring.  So we tossed the idea again during Spring 2015 and thought we'd aim for August.  Finally at the beginning of July we agreed to go for it!  We found 9 days and booked our tickets!  Then the real work began of sorting out where the kids would go, making sure all activities were scheduled accordingly, and packing for all of us.  Isaac really didn't understand why everyone couldn't go to England together. Sorry Buddy, someday you will understand. 

 

Wichita, 6pm Friday August 7th. 

 

Quick flight to Chicago, made our connection, and landed in London's Heathrow Airport at 11am Saturday, August 8th.  We both watched a movie then slept fairly well on the flight over. 

 

Matt and Morgan live in Bury St. Edmunds (BSE) which is about a 2-hour drive from London.  *Side note, all of the proper nouns in the UK are very literal.  Bury St. Edmunds is named this because it's where St. Edmunds was buried.  I will share more as I go.* On our drive to BSE we stopped and toured their Air Force Base, Mildenhall.  Seeing their offices, flight schedules, planning rooms, and of course all of the other sites on the base was so neat.  One of the memorable parts for me was seeing "Jet Fuel" on one of the gas tank pumps.  Not everyday you see that!  After arriving at their house we freshened up and walked to their local pub right around the corner.  It was a wonderful welcome to England and we all relaxed before walking through BSE. 

 

My first Pimm's Cup drink!  It was yummy! 

 

We walked through the St. Edmunds Abbey which is right around the corner from their home. The ruins were really neat, along with the plaques signifying the signing of the

Magna Charta (year 1214 on the plaques). 

 

Sunday we rode with them to Cambridge *a bridge over the Cam river, thus Cambridge* where they attend church.  Royce and I walked through a park and walked the streets while they were at church.  Cambridge is known for their colleges (34 colleges) which the locals call "Uni's" for University.  To say how every single building was neat and unique is an understatement.  They were all so cool!   

 

We also had crepe's while we roamed....

My Belgian chocolate crepe didn't wait for the picture. 

When Matt and Morgan joined us after church we headed for lunch and punting on the Cam river.  This was so much fun, and we had (as you see) a 100% picture perfect day for punting.